Chief Election Commissioner Rajeev Kumar has instructed the Municipal Corporation Commissioners and District Election Officers to increase the voting percentage.
He said that the voter awareness programme should be conducted as a campaign so that the voters themselves get motivated to cast vote.
In the ‘Conference on Low Voter Turnout’ in New Delhi today, Municipal Corporation Commissioners of major cities and some District Election Officers came together to deliberate on making additional efforts towards increasing voter participation.
On this occasion, a booklet on voter apathy was also released by the Commission.
CEC Rajeev Kumar said that a total of 266 parliamentary constituencies (215 rural and 51 urban) with low voting percentage have been identified. He stressed on a multi-pronged strategy to provide facilities like queue management at polling stations, parking in crowded areas.
Chief Election Commissioner Shri Kumar directed to prepare booth-wise action plan for increasing participation and behaviour change.
He directed all Municipal Corporation Commissioners and DEOs to prepare separate strategies for urban and rural areas and plan for different target voters.
Work in such a way that voters feel proud of participating in the festival of democracy.
Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhveer Singh Sandhu also gave important suggestions.
The conference was attended by Municipal Corporation Commissioners of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Thane, Nagpur, Patna Sahib, Lucknow and Kanpur as well as District Election Officers of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Besides, Chief Electoral Officers of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi also participated in the conference.
Chief Electoral Officers of 7 states Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Punjab also participated virtually in the conference.
Continous Campaign for elevating voting turnout: Shri Rajan
Chief Electoral Officer Anupam Rajan said in the conference that a special campaign is being run to boost the voting percentage in Madhya Pradesh.
Voters are being made aware through voter awareness vehicles in 75 assembly constituencies of 26 districts of the state where the percentage of voting was low in the last assembly elections.
Through short films, slogans, posters, voters are being made aware about the importance of voting and the value of their one vote in democracy.
Painting, slogan and writing competitions will be organised at the district level, in which voters of all ages can participate.
Provision for prizes has also been made in competitions. Voter awareness programmes are also being run through True Caller, UPI Payment, Social Media Influencer, sanitation vehicles. Voter awareness programme will be conducted through posters, banners etc. in fair price shops, hospitals, shopping malls, petrol pumps.
There will also be a meeting with resident committees to encourage people to vote.
Women are being made aware about voting in Anganwadi centres. During this, Joint Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Khatri and Basant Kurre and other officers were present.
